Bonjour!
Hope everyone had a sweet Valentine’s Day.
Below is a lively colorful orange soup with distinctive taste and rich texture. It’s as beautiful in the bowl as it is delicious. It’s so nice to discover new ways to prepare healthy dishes using simple ingredients such as vegetables, herbs and a little kosher meat, and transform these into an aromatic meal.
The combination of a variety of spices like cumin, cayenne pepper, and dried oregano turned out to be the key for great aroma and taste in this soup, blended all together bringing out intense flavor. Take your time and enjoy …
Happy Saturday and wishing you a relaxing and peaceful, long Weekend!
Ingredients: Serves 4 – 6
Time: (for the soup) 2hrs between preparation and cooking
- 15 oz organic sweet potato, skin less and chopped
- 1 lb organic carrots, peeled and chopped [approx. 4 large carrots]
- ¾ cup organic celery, washed and chopped [approx. 2 stalks]
- 1 cup organic red bell pepper, rinsed, seedless and chopped [approx. 1 large red bell pepper]
- 1 cup organic white onions, peeled and diced [approx. 1 large onion]
- 4 organic garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
- 1 lb natural Angus prime beef chuck for stew cut into 2″ pieces
- 1 cup organic fire roasted tomatoes [I used these tomatoes]
- 32 fl oz organic vegetable broth – low sodium or homemade
- 4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 large bay leaves
- ½ tsp cumin powder
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper powder
- Kosher salt for taste [for beef and whole soup]
How to Prepare:
- Generously salt the beef chunks and set a side.
- In a dutch oven, heat a large heavy soup pot on medium high heat until hot.
- Add olive oil followed by the beef in a single layer and sear meat until brown on both sides.
- Transfer the beef to a large glass bowl and turn down the heat to medium low.
- Add the onions and then garlic to the pot. Sauté until tender and turn translucent NOT brown, simmer and gently stir with heat resistant rubber spoon.
- Add the carrots and sweet potatos and continue sautéing until started to brown. Then continue adding celery, fire roasted tomatoes, red bell peppers, vegetable broth, bay leaves, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper and salt and return the beef to the pot as well. Cook for about 1 hour on low simmer, cover the pot and leave a crack for steam to escape. The meat and vegetables should fall apart when prodded with a fork.
- Check periodically to see that all the liquid hasn’t evaporated and add a little water if necessary.
- After completely cooked, take off the heat, remove the bay leaves and transfer the vegetable soup mixture into a regular blender or use an immersion blender. Then purée until very smooth. [You may also wait until the soup has cooled esp. if your blender is not heat resistant.]
- In another large heavy soup pot, on medium-low heat, pour in the vegetable puree, simmer gently and stir with heat-resistant rubber spoon until it is lightly thickened for 5-10 minutes.
- Pour the soup into serving bowls and garnish with a parsley leaf, and serve it hot.
Here is a delicious Herbed Garlic Bread recipe to serve with this soup:
Active Time: 10 min. Total Time 25 min. Serves 4
This garlic bread gets its vibrant green color from butter mixed with chopped parsley. The spread is also great on steamed vegetables.
- ¾ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, peeled
- 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
- 1 loaf Ciabatta bread, cut in half horizontally
- Preheat oven to 350º. Finely chop parsley and garlic in a food processor. Add butter, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper, and purée until smooth.
- Spread herbed butter on cut sides of bread, then place cut sides back together. Wrap in foil. Bake until bread is warm and butter melts, about 15 minutes. Cut into wedges.
* Notes:
- The Herbed Garlic Bread recipe is from Martha Stewart Living Magazine dated March 2011. It was my first time making this bread and I enjoyed so much eating it with this soup that I decided to include it here.
- The best part of this recipe is that if you don’t have time to cook, you just place the excess soup in Tupperware and refrigerate it for other meals.
- The napkins featured in this recipe are from my new Bella Bohemian Kitchen & Dining collection.